The Monday Media Diet with Laurie Woolever

On Sigrid Nunez, conspiracies, and their pain of Penn

Laurie Woolever (LW) is a writer and editor. She worked with the late Anthony Bourdain for a decade. She’s the recent author of Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, which you should go buy. We’re excited to have her join us this week. Have a good one. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I've been living in New York and writing about food, travel, and occasionally other subjects for 25 years. This year, I have published two books: World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, which was co-authored, mostly posthumously, with Anthony Bourdain; and Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, which is about the man himself, for whom I worked for nearly a decade, before his death in 2018.

Describe your media diet. 

I typically read at least the big front-page stories of the New York Times, and check-in with most of the sections of New York magazine, the food and restaurant website Eater, and the New York Post's Page Six. I subscribe to the Washington Post and Business Insider, in both cases because there was something compelling behind a paywall, and they made a good case for cost vs. benefit, so most days I'll read a few stories in one or both of those publications. I sometimes listen to NPR; I like the happy derangement with which Kai Ryssdal delivers the bleakest news about our country's economy, and I especially like the weekly call-in show on WNYC, the local NPR station, in which people tell Mayor DeBlasio what an absolute filthy clown shoe he is.

I have a few favorite podcasts: Bitch Sesh, Retail Nightmares, Double Threat, and Who? Weekly. I'll also admit to sometimes re-listening to Carbface For Radio, the podcast that I co-host with Chris Thornton, on which we talk about food and food media, interview funny food people, and sometimes recap episodes of old cooking shows. We just interviewed Naz Riahi, who recently went hugely viral with a picture of a sausage that looked like a flaccid dick.

What’s the last great book you read?

The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez, which I just tore through this weekend, while pretending to watch my kid's Little League double-header. It's such a smart, painful, and sometimes quite funny meditation on loss, suicide, grief, academia, and dogs.

What are you reading now?

Conspiracy Theories, by Mark Fenster, in an attempt to make sense of the mass delusion that's gripping so many Americans, and a galley of Between the Lines, by Uli Beutter Cohen, which is a collection of 170 interviews conducted in and around the subway, with New Yorkers (myself among them), about what they're reading, and why.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I get the print edition of the New York Times on weekends only, and I typically read the front page sections first, then the magazine, book, and Styles sections. I'll hate-skim Real Estate out of pure envy and spite, read as much of the Sunday Review as interests me, and glance at Metropolitan, taking extreme care to avoid the treacly "Metropolitan Diary" section, which gives me a heat rash and digestive issues. 

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Canadian comedian and podcaster Alicia Tobin wrote So You're a Little Sad, So What?, which is one of the funniest, kindest, and most generous books of essays about anxiety, food, dogs, raccoons, depression, and sex that I've ever read. I suggest it to anyone who occasionally has bad days, which is pretty much everyone.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

I don't know whether it's famous or not, but I really like the Dark Sky weather app, which distinguishes itself from the others simply by being consistently functional but also includes so many precise metrics that it's actually profoundly useful.

Plane or train?

It's entirely dependent on the destination. I'll always choose Amtrak over flying for trips from New York to Boston, Philadelphia, or DC, and I've had some great train experiences in France, Portugal, Japan, and Sri Lanka. I used to take Amtrak from New York to Utica, to visit family, but the cost savings were so often canceled out by long delays and really annoying long lines at Penn Station, that I have lately switched to the nearly always flawless 45-minute flight to Syracuse.

What is one place everyone should visit? 

Your local bookstore, with money to spend. You don't get to lament the closing of these places if you're not supporting them while they're still fighting for survival.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into. 

The films and life of Chantal Akerman. It started with a screengrab from her 1977 documentary, News From Home, that came up on my Instagram explore page. From there I started looking for all of her films, which got me to subscribe to the Criterion Channel. I've been trying to read everything I can about her, and telling anyone who will listen to watch her films so that we can talk about them. I'm waiting for my copy of My Mother Laughs, her memoir, to arrive via my local bookshop. (LW)

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